05/02/2011The speed may not be equal to that of the products they manufacture and, indeed, not be enough to solve the urgent problem of the Brazilian logistics bottleneck, but the industries of railway carriages, passenger trains, ships, lorries, buses and road implements are stepping up their investments in technology and processes as well as increases of production. Factors such as a forecast of sustainable growth, the World Cup and Olympic Games, a bigger investment on the part of concessionaires and also a Government plan to balance the logistics matrix of the country through to 2025 are the background for the strategies for expansion that are now in progress at full throttle in large industrial firms. Companies plan to invest even more, as the growth of demand and also the appearance of new projects for the expansion of networks or old plans get off the ground and allow further financial injection.
In the rail transport area, the feeling is that this decade shall be one of the most promising ever and shall set new production records, as stated by Vicente Abate, the President of the Brazilian Association of the Railway Industry (Associação Brasileira da Indústria Ferroviária – ABIFER). “This shall be a period of consolidation for this segment”, he believes. The companies shall invest between R$ 80 million and R$ 100 million this year, he reckons. Between 2003 and 2010, the segment invested R$ 1.1 billion and now operate with plenty of leeway, with a current installed capacity of 12 thousand goods carriages, 900 passenger carriages and 150 locomotives every year. The forecast made by ABIFER for 2011 is the production of 5 thousand railway carriages, which is about 53% more than in 2010; 100 locomotives, which is 47% more; and 450 passenger carriages, which is a rise of some 5%. Mr Abate’s optimism can be well observed in the forecasts for the period of ten years.
In the 1970s, which has been the best decade in total figures so far, the industry produced a total of 30.6 thousand carriages and 638 locomotives, while the forecast for the period between 2010 and 2019 is that production shall be 40 thousand and 2.1 thousand respectively. This means that the expectation is that the production of locomotives shall more than triple and the production of carriages shall increase by some 30% when comparing these decades. In the segment of passenger carriages, the expectation is that production shall double, from the 1,930 of the last decade to some 4 thousand this decade. “There are many projects for regional passenger trains, light rail systems, monorails, and also expansion of Underground networks because of the important sporting events while, on the other hand, there is a need for companies to seek faster and more competitive alternatives for the transport of their goods, not to mention the Government plan to balance the logistics matrix of the country”, Mr Abate explains, giving the example of the increase in the participation of rail transport in the said matrix from the current 25% to 32%, with an expected expansion of the network from 29 thousand kilometers to 41 thousand kilometers in the period.
These are the forecasts and also the currently active projects which attract investments by the companies producing means of transport. The American company Caterpillar, through its rail transport subsidiary Progress Rail, plans to implement a factory unit in Brazil with the capacity to produce 70 locomotives per year. Carlos Roso, the General Manager of MGE Transportes, the company of the Group which produces motors and refurbishes locomotives in Brazil, says that the plan, which is now in the final phase of study, just needs to get the green light from the Board of the Company. Mr Roso prefers not to inform the total value of the investment, but stresses that the total value shall depend on the decision about the location of the industrial plant – the company is looking into the possibility of tax breaks – and also the nationalization rate of the products. On the market, there is a feeling that the unit could be installed either in Sete Lagoas, a steel and mining hub in the State of Minas Gerais, or the city of Hortolândia, near Campinas, where the company already has a unit for the revamping and modernization of locomotives, and which has attracted major manufacturers of the railway transport segment.
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Hortolândia is, for example, home to the Brazilian passenger carriage production units of Canadian company Bombardier and also of the Spanish outfit, CAF. This latter company has invested some R$ 200 million to open their unit in the country in record time, last March, the unit having a total area of 12.5 thousand square meters, and the company has also made further investments for expansion. Currently, the company is completing a consolidation of the company activities in the same area, which shall be increased to 41 thousand square meters and have a general nationalization rate of 60% for the production. Paulo Fontenele, the President of CAF, says that the decisions regarding expansion were made together with the orders placed by the metro companies in São Paulo and Recife and also the São Paulo Metropolitan Train Company (Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos – CPTM). “We are also looking into the possibility of exporting from Brazil to South and Central America and are prepared to take part in the tender for the high-speed train project between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro”, says Mr Fontenele. The Spanish company has recently developed, at a cost of US$ 460 million, a train that can travel at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour (217.52 mph) to participate in the world high-speed market”, he adds.
Bombardier, which is also eyeing opportunities in the high-speed market with much attention, has been investing in expansion projects since 2009 and is now wrapping up a new expansion project to participate in new tenders and also serve the recent contracts that have been conquered, such as the construction of the Eastern Express Monorail (Expresso Monotrilho Leste), which is an extension of Line 2 of the São Paulo Underground, this being a project with a price tag of R$ 2.46 billion , of which R$ 1.4 billion from the Canadian company. Like CAF, Bombardier does not disclose how much investment has been made in expansion, but the company is doubling its production area to 20 thousand square meters. “Events such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ and the 2016 Olympic Games, as also the general economic growth of Brazil, shall require a better mobility system for the country, and the Underground and train networks are fundamental to make sure of this. This is the case in all developed countries, and the fact is that China and India, who are also part of the BRICs, are placing their bets on this modal”, says Luís Ramos, the Institutional Manager at Bombardier.
The Transport Director at Alstom Brazil, Ramon Fondevila, highlights that the company is investing in the modernization and optimization of the Brazilian industrial unit for the production of Underground units and trains, but the main focus of the French company at this moment is that of producing other means of transport in the country, these including light rail units and bullet trains. “However, these plans depend directly on demand that justifies these production items, which means that they depend on investments made by cities, states and regions”, says Mr Fondevila, who believes that the 2014 FIFA World Cup™, the Summer Olympic Games and also the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) for Mobility shall bring additional investments in infrastructure.”We are already aware of the projects in many cities, both for the expansion of the systems currently in existence, as is the case of São Paulo, and also many cities that are looking at new solutions such as light rail which we feel has a lot of potential for the Brazilian
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